Realizations
by Lear's Daughter
Summary: Response to challenge at Demented Allure. Magneto and Rogue wind up in prison what happens next? Post X2, MagnetoRogue pairing


Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with X-Men.

Rogue was not surprised to find herself in jail, although she had thought that she had gotten good enough at blending into a crowd to avoid detection by all but the most perceptive cops. To be picked out as a mutant simply because of her strange apparel and furtive glances and then to be arrested on a phony charge simply because the policeman who noticed her hated mutants was a travesty of justice almost greater than she could bear. She had contemplated, for the briefest moment, ripping off her glove and grabbing the cop's face, showing him _just what she was capable of_…but some training from Xavier's must have kicked in, because instead she meekly allowed herself to be handcuffed and hauled away in a police car while a group of bystanders jeered.

The man who had arrested her hadn't gone so far as to deny her her one phone call, but, to her embarrassment, there had been no one she wanted to contact. She had actually picked up the phone and begun dialing a number that was not from her memories, a number that some unconscious part of her brain insisted would reach someone _safe_, before she had jerked away in fear and allowed the phone to fall from her hand, the dial tone seeming to sound piercingly loudly in her ear despite its distance from her. If the number had belonged to a friend of Logan's, then she probably didn't want to meet whoever it was, anyways. If it belonged to someone with a connection to Magneto...well, best not to dwell on that subject. As to the X-Men, she felt it was better to make a clean break from them, even if that meant enduring some time in prison.

Unfortunately, being left in an empty, dilapidated cell was not conducive to shedding morbid thoughts, and Rogue couldn't keep her mind from returning more and more frequently to the reasons she was in her current situation. She couldn't help remembering the fear she had felt from Bobby when they had kissed, or the look of quiet resolution on Pyro's face when he had left the plane to join Magneto. Having touched the fiery young mutant earlier, Rogue had been utterly unsurprised by his actions, but she had been surprised by her own desire to join him as he left, a desire she always blamed on the bit of him she had absorbed; except when she was honest with herself, that is.

She let her hand drift to her face, gently probing the livid bruise around her eye where the cop had struck her when he claimed she had been resisting arrest. Her other arm cradled her side, where he had punched her in retaliation for the minor drain her powers had had on his life force when he had hit her the first time. Pyro had joined Magneto because he didn't want things like this to happen to mutants who'd done nothing wrong. Magneto had done the things he'd done, all of the awful things he'd done, including what he'd tried to do to her, because he truly believed that they would help lead to a better world for mutants; and for all Rogue knew, maybe they would. It wasn't like she had anything to compare Magneto's memories to, after all, since neither the Professor nor any of the X-Men had ever allowed her to touch them -- she could understand Magneto because he was a part of her, but Xavier and his loyal band of superheroes were still quite foreign to her.

Then, of course, there were the identity issues she had been dealing with for years now. Sometimes, for example, she would find herself agreeing with Magneto's ideas, but she instantly suppressed her agreement because she was too afraid to let the Magneto part of her have any power in her mind. More and more recently, however, she'd begun to wonder whether it really was Magneto's memories in her mind making her think revolutionary thoughts, or whether she'd really been suppressing her own desires and inclinations for fear of appearing too much like the mutant who'd once tried to kill her.

She lay down on the uncomfortable cot provided for her and closed her eyes, hoping that sleep would come and grant her just one dreamless night. She was half-right; sleep did come quickly, but the dreams that haunted her with memories belonging to her and to others tortured her all night.

* * *

She must have been more fatigued than she thought, because she woke up partway through the next morning only because she heard loud footsteps making their way towards her cell. She rose stiffly from the cot, stretching to get rid of the kinks from a long night, and strode forward to grip the bars of her cell. She stiffened when she saw who was coming. The first man who caught her eyes was the same policeman who had arrested her yesterday afternoon; in front of him was none other than Magneto, walking with that unconscious arrogance that suffused his every move. Rogue stared, wide-eyed, as Magneto was led to her cell, where the cop unlocked the door, shoved him in, then closed and locked it again, leaving as brusquely as he had come.

"Good morning, Rogue," Magneto said politely, watching her with a calm expression as if they weren't mortal enemies, and standing there in a sweater and slacks with his hands relaxed at his sides as if they were meeting at a dinner party and not in a jail cell.

"What the _hell_ are you doing here?" Rogue demanded, backing away from him warily. Her fingers twitched with the desire to suck him dry, but she forced that feeling away. She wasn't a killer, and she wouldn't let him make her into one.

He shrugged. "I heard from an old friend that a young woman I was somewhat indebted to had been arrested, and I decided to come see if I could offer my assistance."

"Yeah, right," she snorted, twirling a lock of white hair around one finger pointedly. "St. Magneto the Altruist; the title doesn't quite ring true."

"Nevertheless, that is why I'm here," he said seriously, gazing at her intently through those slate blue eyes of his. She shivered a little under his stare. His face tightened angrily as he took in the bruise on her face. "I'm not entirely clear on the details of your arrest, however. What was it exactly that you did?"

She frowned bitterly. "They accused me of solicitation, of all things." She glared down at her ungloved hands, wringing them together.

"Soliciting?" he repeated.

"Prostituting myself," she said bluntly.

"And were you...soliciting?" he inquired, his tone indifferent but the gleam in his eye saying otherwise.

"Of course not!" she said, her brown eyes narrowed at him. "That's one of the few crimes I'm not even capable of committing, thanks to my power."

He raised an eyebrow at that. "Are you sure?"

She sputtered in response.

"Well, have you ever tried?" he queried, and her indignation increased when she saw the gleam in his eye. She couldn't keep a heated flush from rising to her cheeks, both at her own embarrassment and at that look in his eyes, a look that bespoke wicked thoughts.

"I am _not_ talking about this to _you_, of all people," she declared, glaring daggers at him. She paused. "On second thought, I don't want to talk to you about anything at all, so why don't you just use your powers to go and _leave me alone_!"

He blinked at her, pretending to be obtuse. "If I were to leave now without you, that would rather defeat the purpose of my getting myself arrested at all, wouldn't it? No, no, my dear, I came to help, and help I shall."

She sighed wearily, then sat on her cot. She put her head in her hands. "Listen, Magneto: it might surprise you to hear that I don't want to deal with you right now. I don't care about whatever nefarious plot you want to use me for, and if you just came here to taunt me again like you did on the plane, I don't care about that, either. I've left the X-Men, I'm no danger to you -- why can't you just leave me alone?"

She stiffened when she felt his hand on her shoulder, surprised enough by his proximity to look up into his eyes. His handsome, chiseled face was intent as he looked down at her.

"I am not leaving here without you, Rogue," he told her. "It might surprise _you_ to know that I have no, as you put it, 'nefarious plot' to use you in, nor do I wish to taunt you -- although you must know that my rather cruel comment on the plane was not meant to injure you, but to provide you the reason you needed to actually use your powers for once instead of keeping them hidden. I once stole your liberty from you when I wished to use you for my purposes; when Charles contacted me yesterday to inform me that you had been arrested, it occurred to me that this would be a good opportunity to liberate you from a form of captivity."

She eyed him warily, as one might a sleeping tiger. "Why didn't the Professor just come himself?"

"Really, my dear, do try and think things through," he said patronizingly. "Charles is a public figure; for him to be seen as breaking a supposed mutant criminal out of jail could seriously damage his cause. I, on the other hand, am already thought of as a mutant terrorist, so my breaking you out could only be beneficial to my cause. When Charles realized this, he contacted me on a number known only to the two of us and agreed to arrange my arrest and placement in your cell if I would break you out." When she still looked doubtful, he let out a growl. "Use what you've learned of me from our touch, Rogue, and admit what you no doubt desperately don't want to believe -- I am not a bad man."

"Not bad," she whispered, crossing her arms across her chest as she thought back to that terrible ordeal on the Statue of Liberty, echoes of remembered terror chilling her. "Just ruthless."

His gaze softened at her obvious fear. "I said at the time, and it is still true, that I am sorry about having used you like that, Rogue. It was the only thing I could think of."

"You could have _asked_," she hissed, losing her fear as a familiar anger took hold in her.

He laughed at that. "And would you have said 'yes'?" he asked, his expression mocking.

"If you had explained everything -- if you had allowed me to make my own decision, rather than making it for me -- then maybe," she snarled, standing from the cot so that she didn't have to look up at him as much. "You never stopped to think that maybe I hated humans, too, that maybe I would see the necessity of using my powers to actually achieve something for once. You never stopped to think that by kidnapping me and forcing me to do what you wanted you alienated me utterly from your cause."

He stared at her in surprise, her response catching him entirely off-guard. "What are you saying, Rogue?" he questioned, his eyes piercing her. "That you agree with my cause? That you would be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the betterment of mutantkind?"

She seemed to deflate in front of his very eyes. "I'm saying that I'll never know what _I_ believe," she said. "That you took away nearly everything that made me _me_ that night on Liberty Island when you injected me with your own memories, and that the X-Men took away what was left when they tried to make me fit the mold of meek child. That's why I left the X-Men, and why I didn't call anyone at Xavier's when I was arrested -- I was sick of trying to be what they wanted me to be."

The compassion in Magneto's eyes was more than she'd seen from anyone else in a very long time. He brought a hand to her cheek, and for the first time she noticed that he was wearing gloves. His hand felt very warm against her face, and she let out a little sigh at the pleasure of human contact.

"Rogue," he said, his firm voice forcing her to hold his gaze, "tell me what you are feeling, right now, about the world, about your life, about everything."

"Like I'm going to tell you -- " she began scornfully, but he cut her off with a gesture of his hand.

"Just...humor me," he insisted.

She sighed. "Frankly? I'm pissed. I'm pissed at you for forcing me to endure your presence. I'm pissed at the X-Men for trying to make me be something I'm not. Mostly, though, I'm furious at those humans and the way they try to walk all over me because I'm a mutant. I don't think I'm better than them, but I'm certainly no worse, and I deserve to be treated with some goddamn respect!"

His lips curled into a smile, the age lines at the sides of his face crinkling. "Good," he murmured. Still holding her gaze with his eyes, he used his teeth to pull the glove off of his right hand. Gently, he laid that hand back against her cheek. They both sucked in a quick breath at the contact. It lasted for barely a couple of seconds before both stepped back from each other, breaking the touch. Magneto was still watching her, gasping as the color began to return to his cheeks. Rogue turned away from him, pressing her hands to her face and hiding her gaze from him. "And now?" he persisted, forcing her to look at him. "What do you feel now?"

Her eyes had a far-away look in them, and she spoke in a monotone. "Furious at what's been done to me -- outraged that anyone would dare to lay a hand on me when I could lay them flat with the tip of my finger. Disdainful of the human race -- I'm better than them, and it is my right to do to them as I see fit on behalf of all mutants." She gasped again as she seemed to break out of a trance, looking at Magneto through wide eyes.

"That is the difference between the two of us, my dear," he said, not unkindly. "Perhaps there is a great deal of me still in you; perhaps some of my memories are influencing you. But you must learn to adapt, to use your powers rather than to hide them away as if they are something to be ashamed of. Embrace what you have learned from me, from the Wolverine, even from the human boy you once kissed, and use it to your advantage."

"I don't know how," she whispered, looking up into his eyes through a curtain of white hair.

His eyes softened, and he used his ungloved hand to lightly caress her cheek. "Then come with me, and I'll teach you."

"I don't want to hurt anyone," she whispered again.

"_That_ is Charles talking," he said sternly.

"There's something else I'm feeling right now that I didn't mention before," Rogue said, marveling at the strange sensations coursing through her.

"Oh?" he asked, an eyebrow raised.

And whether she was feeling her own lust for him or his lust for her did not matter as she closed the small distance between them and pressed her lips to his. He smiled as he kissed her back, breaking off the contact only when he felt himself becoming quite weak. She stepped back from him, then touched her lips with her hands, an expression of pleasure on her face.

"I don't think this is what the Professor had in mind when he asked you to come rescue me," she said, her pupils dilated.

"I really don't care what Charles wants," Magneto replied, his breathing a little labored.

She smiled. "Neither do I."

She used his power to bend the bars of their cell, then strode out of it with Magneto at her side. When the policeman from earlier tried to stop them, she didn't hesitate to shoot him in the leg using his own weapon. They made their escape unhurriedly, confident in their strength, and when Magneto took her hand and led her to the waiting helicopter several blocks away, she did not resist.

Later that evening, through mutual experimentation they discovered that Rogue could indeed solicit, if she ever chose to. Looking at her powerful, handsome, hale lover as he groaned his release above her, however, she knew that she never would.


End file.
